Boulder County Housing Project Manager Chris Campbell points to a map while explaining the affordable housing proposal to Old Town Lafayette resident Debbie Hill during a community meeting in June.

A contest to name Lafayette’s newest affordable housing project yielded some historical returns.

Boulder County Housing Authority officials earlier this month announced the large-scale residential development will be named “Willoughby Corner,” a nod to the area’s one-time connection to the Willoughby coal mine and violent unionization clashes that spilled into the region in the early 1900s.

Submitted by Old Town Lafayette resident Kappy Hall, the moniker beat out more than 40 other options, including finalists “Abeytas Acres/Haven” and “Comunidad Unida.”

The housing authority launched the online “Lafayette, Name that Neighborhood” contest in October to bestow upon the new neighborhood a name that “is reflective of the community’s history, people, and culture.”

In the last round of voting, officials said Willoughby garnered nearly three times as many top votes as the other two finalists.

In her submission, Hall said the name “Willoughby Corner” is based on the writings of an area historian, whose work spotlighted the area’s connections with the coal industry’s often-fraught past.

“Amid the violent clashes over unionization of mine workers during the early 1900s that touched Lafayette’s mines, as well as the better-known clashes in southern Colorado, the American Fuel Company — owner of the Willoughby mine — supported its workers,” Hall wrote.

She added that the name is “the perfect description of this community that is bounded by Waneka’s wheat fields, a light industrial area, and the semi-rural Flagg Drive community.”

Willoughby Corner will divide its housing options between rentals and units available for affordable ownership, according to Ian Swallow, a Boulder County Housing Authority development planner serving as the project manager.

Rentals likely will be priced below 60 percent of the area median income rates — $1,222 and $1,694 for one- and three-bedroom units, respectively, according to rentcafe.com — and ownership units will potentially run between 60 and 120 percent AMI, Swallow said.

The ambitious development was first announced when city leaders in 2017 brokered a $3.5 million deal with Flatirons Community Church for 24 acres near the intersection of 120th and East Emma streets.

The other finalists (and potentially semifinalists) in the contest also will be incorporated into Willoughby Corner, officials say, with names needed for specific buildings and community gathering areas, gardens, parks and streets.

“It’s been heartwarming to see over three-dozen excellent suggestions for naming this new neighborhood,” Mackenzie Sehlke, public affairs specialist for Boulder County Housing and Human Services, stated in a news release. “Lafayette residents are proud of their community’s culture, history, and desire to help others, and we are deeply grateful to every neighbor who took the time to express that to us over the past few months, including all those who voted.”